Cycle of violence: Young lives cut short

These are some of the faces of the 36 African American males between the ages of 16 and 24 who have died in homicides during the first eight months of 2013. The group accounts for about 40 percent of all homicides — 94 — in that time period.
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Star Illustration
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Through the first eight months of this year in Marion County, 39 people between the ages of 16 and 24 have died in homicides — 36 were black males.

That demographic represents less than 2 percent of the Marion County population yet has produced 92 percent of the victims in that age group. It also accounts for nearly 40 percent of the 94 homicides through the end of August.

The disproportionate number of young black men who show up in homicide statistics is not new or unique to Indianapolis. But this year goes well beyond the norm. The 36 victims represent a 171 percent jump from 2012, and the number is at least one-third higher than anytime in the past eight years.

While the growing number of homicides is troubling, the victims represent a fraction — less than 1 percent — of the city’s young black men. Still, their cases provide context to the harsh reality that in Marion County young black men are 10 times more likely than their white counterparts to die in a homicide.

An Indianapolis Star examination of hundreds of pages of police reports and other public records uncovered common themes in the lives of the growing number of victims: a history of troubled pasts at home, school and in their neighborhoods that intersects with a street culture where carrying a gun — and using it to settle a dispute or earn respect — can be seen as the measure of a man.

The findings reveal that 33 of the victims were involved in prior violent outbursts that drew law enforcement attention, and 31 in incidents where police reported guns were used or found. Five had been shot at least once before they were killed.

“I actually think kids are getting more violent and at a younger age,” said the Rev. Charles Harrison, who heads the Ten Point Coalition, a group that sends pastors and volunteers into some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods to quell violence.

The findings also suggest logical starting points for meaningful discussions needed to stem the tide of bloodshed — a daunting and complex challenge, experts say, that will require the cooperation of political leaders, law enforcement, educators, social service agencies, religious institutions, families and the community.

Deep-seated forces

“We cannot excuse or look away from personal accountability, first and foremost,” said Earl Wright II, a sociologist and professor of Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

“But that’s the low-hanging fruit. That’s the surface level. It’s easy for us to stop at simply saying a person should be able to control themselves when confronted with a certain situation.”

Far more difficult to deal with, Wright explained, are deep-seated forces behind the crime and violence.

He cites issues that show up repeatedly in the records examined by The Star: educational failure, poverty and the lack of economic opportunity, broken families, failed criminal justice interventions, and a distorted view of respect and justice. Those factors have helped push the homicide rate for young black men in Marion County to 28 percent above the national average.

Thirty-one of the victims came through the juvenile justice system, but Moores said it often is too late — even at 12 or 15 — to turn around their lives. She calls them “feral children,” essentially abandoned by their parents and left to fend for themselves on the streets.

“Parenting is a participation sport, and we are not seeing a lot of participation,” the judge said. “A lot of it comes from people who become a parent at too young an age, or parents absent because of drugs or incarceration or because they were nothing more than a sperm donor and have no other involvement in their children’s lives.”

That cycle continues with the killing; at least 11 victims left behind now-fatherless children.

Among the young

Monquize Edwards was a product of the family breakdowns Moores said she sees all too often. The 16-year-old was shot on a Downtown street packed with Fourth of July revelers.

By that time, Edwards had amassed at least nine arrests and was involved in six gun-related incidents. The judge places most of the blame on a lack of positive parenting.

Documents obtained through a public records request show Edwards spent much of his early life under supervision of the state’s child welfare system because of his mother’s struggles with drugs. During that time, he lived with relatives and a string of guardians.

And just weeks before he was shot, Edwards again was placed in a foster home. Records show his mother moved into an apartment where her teen son was not allowed because of his criminal record, leaving the young man adrift in a world he was not equipped to handle. His mother declined to talk to The Star.

“He was a troubled teen coming up,” said the Rev. Clarence Thompkins, who served as a guardian to Edwards for about six months two years ago. “But there was a lot of good in Monquize, and I believe he was trying to turn his life around.”

Edwards recently had been attending Thompkins’ church, the Temple of Faith on East Washington Street, and bringing his young son.

“He would tell me,” the pastor recalled, “that he didn’t want his son to go down the same road he did.”

Moores also saw the light in Edwards.

“Monquize was so dynamic and charismatic. He had so much potential. He was the kind of kid who could have, with the right upbringing or assistance, done great things,” the judge said.

“I am just so weary of seeing so much potential in caskets.”

Guns convey respect

Wright, the sociologist, and other experts say drugs and guns provide young men such as Edwards what they can’t obtain through strong families, education and jobs: money and respect.

And when something goes wrong, violence is often the first response.

Police cited arguments, retaliation and self-defense as motives in at least 16 of the homicides. That was followed by 12 deaths attributed to drugs, a broad-based category that includes beefs over unpaid debts and attempts to steal a dealer’s stash or profits.

Twenty-two of the victims died within five miles of their homes, including 13 who lived and died within two miles of one of the six “hot zones” that IMPD has identified as the deadliest and most violent pockets in the city and targeted for intensive prevention efforts.

“For a lot of these young men, it’s about respect,” Wright explained. “This problem goes to the larger societal devaluation of what it means to be a black man.”

There is, he says, a troubling mindset among too many young, urban black men. They perceive a lack of respect from society in general, so they follow the lead they pick up from the streets, music and movies — that respect can be obtained with violence and guns.

“For a lot of young black males who don’t necessarily have male figures in their lives, this music, this inundation of the media, informs them on what it means to be a man,” Wright said. “So if (rapper) Lil’ Wayne says he’s never run from anybody, that he’s going to stay there and fight, then that means it must be OK to fight in every situation.”

Accessible weapons

Traci Franklin-Love, whose 17-year-old son, Darnell Franklin, was killed in an accidental shooting July 21, said guns are too accessible and attractive to many young men.

“I think kids are going crazy over the fact they can carry these weapons,” she said. “They feel like they are untouchable.”

Even though her son wasn’t old enough to legally buy or carry a handgun in Indiana, police confiscated a loaded .38- caliber pistol from Franklin about a year before he was killed. The friend who accidentally shot Franklin in a Downtown parking garage was 17, also too young to legally obtain a permit to carry a handgun.

“There is so much peer pressure. They see other kids with guns and say, ‘I’m going to get one, too,’” said Franklin-Love. “This is all these kids are thinking about.”

It is not only the victims who were disproportionately young and black. So, too, were those doing the killing: 22 of the suspects in the 25 homicides police consider solved.

Harrison, of the Ten Point Coalition, said young men are becoming more violent at an earlier age than when he started patrolling troubled neighborhoods 15 years ago.

“What we’re seeing, because these kids have been so indoctrinated by this culture of violence,” he said, “is this disregard for human life.”

Black youths who soon will become part of the high-risk demographic deal with the hostile climate every day.

“People are getting killed over shoes, cars, girls,” said Dominique Bryant, 13, while attending a mentoring program at the Keenan-Stahl Boys and Girls Club on Troy Avenue.

Bryant, who lives on the city’s Westside, said the troublemakers are brazen and not intimidated by police.

“If police drove up and down the street constantly,” he said, “I don’t think it would stop for a hot minute.”

John Harshaw, 14, who lives near East 46th Street and Arlington Avenue, says the dangerous atmosphere means kids are afraid to go out on the streets alone.

“You can’t even be with one or two other people,” said Harshaw, who also was at the mentoring program. “You need seven to 10 people with you to stay safe.”

“It has to start at home”

Reducing the violence and homicides, Harrison said, will require an initiative involving the entire community.

“We have to change the hearts of our young people today,” he said, “and I think that happens through three ways.

“We have to have stronger families. We have to pursue education. And we also have to create job opportunities for individuals who are out here in the street engaged in this criminal lifestyle. We have to give them an alternative to doing crime.”

There are projects and groups — including the Ten Point Coalition, Wishard Memorial Hospital’s Prescription for Hope program and police saturation patrols in hot spots — that have shown some promise or success. But they address only parts of the problem or reach small segments of the at-risk population; nothing presently addresses the full slate of issues across the city.

And there are no comprehensive models Indianapolis leaders can simply copy from other cities, said Wright, the sociologist and professor.

A black who grew up in a single-parent household, Wright said education and solid adult oversight, including positive male role models, are keys to the solution. Those two factors, he said, have been lost for a segment of society where about 70 percent of the households are headed by a single parent — primarily women — and the high school graduation rate hovers around 50 percent.

“Education is the linchpin from which everything extends,” Wright contends. “Because once you have education, then you have the ability to go out and perform better in life.”

The pull of the streets

Even with strong families, positive male role models and mentoring, some young men remain unable to escape the pull of the streets.

Jerryn Greene, 19, was preparing to enroll at Vincennes University — a move his family hoped would help the teen get beyond a troubled past — when he hooked up with some friends May 6 outside a cell phone store near East 34th Street and Keystone Avenue.

A few hours later, he was fatally shot in the 3400 block of Brouse Avenue. Instead of heading off to college, Greene was buried in the suit he wore when he graduated from Lawrence Central High School.

His mother, KyAnna Greene, 38, still goes by the site two or three times a week. A bloodstain there, she explained, is the last earthly connection to her only son.

A single mother, KyAnna Greene received a lot of help from her parents, Gerald and Debera Greene. Theirs was a family that stressed education, faith and hard work.

“We set the bar high for Jerryn, like we did for our six children,” said Debera Greene, whose father was an Indianapolis police officer killed in the line of duty.

Four of the couple’s six children, including Jerryn’s mother, graduated from college. Among them are a doctor and a lawyer.

“He had a strong support system. He had his mother, and he had us,” Debera Greene said. “It wasn’t like he was just thrown into the streets.”

Despite the positive role models, Jerryn Greene struggled as a teen. He had several brushes with the law that included violent outbursts aimed at his mother and grandparents.

“We don’t understand where the violence was coming from. We don’t know how he became involved with these types of people. We just don’t know,” his grandfather Gerald Greene said. “But the streets claimed him.”

IndyStar reporters John Tuohy and Mark Nichols contributed to this story.